Engineering Products

ViENERG's - Indirect Water Bath Heater

Well Testing & EPF Equipments

Indirect water bath heater are sometimes called line heaters. Indirect fired water bath heater /Line Heaters is the process equipment need to prevent hydrates. Hydrates are often formed during depressurization or sudden decrease in pressure. Hydrates are poison which will block and damage downstream equipments , valves and instruments.

Indirect fired heaters /Line heaters heat the gas stream before and / or after the choke so that the gas is maintained above the hydrate temperature. Indirect fired water bath heater / Line Heaters can be used to heat crude oil for treating, heat a hot fluid circulating medium. Most common equipment type used to heat a well stream is the indirect fired water bath heater/Line heater.

Indirect fired water bath heater/Line Heater is used to maintain or increase above 120 deg F, which is well above hydrate formation temperature for LTX.

In fire tube Indirect fired water bath heater/Line heater, the coils are immersed in a bath of water, the water is heater by fire tube that is in the bath below th coils. That is fire tube in indirect fired water bath heater(Line heater) provides heat flux that heats the water bath. Indirect fired water bath heater(Line Heater) exchanges heat by convection and conduction to the process fluid. On other hand, instead of fire tube the electrical immersion heaters are used to heat water bath in indirect fired water bath heater/Line heater. Fire tubes in indirect fired water bath heater (Line heaters) are by far most common source of heat.

Limitation in indirect fired water bath heater /Line heater is bath temperature to 190 deg F to avoid evaporating the water, if higher temperature are needed, glycol can be added to the water in indirect fired water bath heater/Line heater.

Purpose of indirect fired water bath heater/Line heater is to prevent hydrates from forming downstream of the heater, the outlet temperature will depend on the hydrate formation temperature of gas. The coil size of a indirect fired water bath heater/Line heater is depends onn the volume of fluid forming through the coil and the required heat duty.

Some of standard Indirect fired water bath heater equipment used in well testing industry is.